Page One

[Editor's Note: Former Berkeley Daily Planet reporter Richard Brenneman's extensive reporting on the deficiencies of the pact UC Berkeley made with BP has been re-confirmed in a new publication from the Center for American Progress. He spotlights it in his blog, linked and reprinted in part below. And now Amy Goodman has picked up the story--see the video below, sent to us by Brenneman].

Jennifer Washburn, perhaps the nation’s best writer on the plight of the American university in the corporate era, has written a stunning report on the influence of oil companies on American universities.

Big Oil Goes to College, released today by the Center for American Progress, is a meticulous, 212-page analysis of ten research pacts between major energy companies and leading U.S. universities.[Big Oil Goes to College] is available online here as a pdf. It’s a document of vital concern to anyone concerned about the plight of the American university in an era where the corporation has replaced government as the dominant institution in over civil and civic lives.

One of the agreements she dissects is the $500 million research pact between UC Berkeley and BP [formerly British Petroleum, and before that, the Anglo Iranian Oil Company].

Of critical importance for readers in Berkeley is her examination on the real and potential conflicts of interest in the institution we’ve dubbed Global Corporate University, so we decided to reprint that section here,